Personal blog - and temporary home page until new website is finished - of writer, editor and graphic artist Christopher Mills

Monday, April 09, 2007

Monday Morning Musings

I'm feeling considerably better this morning than I have in several weeks. My sciatica has finally improved to a point where I can once again relax in my recliner and spend long hours working at my desk – although riding in the car is still agonizing. Must be something about the angle of the seats in the Saturn. I dunno.

Starting to make some progress catching up on my work, at last. Turned in an overdue short story last week, and have been working on comic scripts the last few days. Now that I can watch TV and movies again, I figure that, not this week, but probably next, I'll have a new DVD Late Show column up over at Quick Stop. Also, my new crime comics blog, Guns In the Gutters, is going well, with a dozen reviews posted so far, and a surprisingly high number of hits. I'm having fun with it, too, which is always a plus.

There's a very good chance I'll be shutting down my MySpace account in the next few days. Every time I try to post a legitimate bulletin over there, it blocks my account and insists that it's been phished. I've had to change my password three times tonight, and I'm not sure it was worth the effort. I shall ponder.

Anyway, I'm busy as hell. This week, I've got Captain Midnight and Femme Noir scripts on my plate, with another short story and another comics script lined up right after.

Wish more of it paid, though. Money's tight and medical bills have mounted up. Insurance just plain doesn't cover everything, unfortunately, and it looks like our taxes are going to be a bitch this year, too.

Changing gears... Joe Staton sent me a copy of the recent DC trade paperback Huntress: Darknight Daughter, which reprints most if not all of the old Earth-2 Huntress stories that Joe and current DC publisher Paul Levitz did back in the Seventies. It's great stuff!

I mean it. All-ages superhero adventures with awesome art, plenty of action, solid chracterization and an appealing, attractive, moral heroine. My only complaint is with Levitz's introduction, where it sounds like he's apologizing for the quality of his work on these stories.

I've got news for you, Paul: this stuff is better than 90% of the cynical, overblown, depressing Hollywood wannabe shit you guys are publishing these days. If you feel like apologizing, apologize for that crap.

As for other recent diversions, those Michael Shayne movies were fantastic. Fast-paced, funny, and very well acted by some of the best character actors of the era – Lloyd Nolan, included. I hope Fox puts out the remaining ones in the series ASAP. I wonder who has the rights to the PRC Shayne films with Hugh Beaumont? Hmmmm...

So, I'm now hoping to get that Payback Director's Cut after Brandi gets the taxes paid. Hope we can swing it, and I won't have to put it off too long. We'll see.

Welcome to Atomic Pulp

Christopher Mills is a professional writer of comic books and short fiction in a variety of genres, as well as a DVD reviewer for several pop culture websites. His taste in entertainment clearly peaked when he was about 15, which certainly explains his embarrassing obsession with James Bond, hardboiled crime fiction, comic books, paperback pulps, space opera, Universal/Hammer/Toho Monsters, sword & sorcery sagas, old genre TV shows and vintage B-movies.